Salvation Summaries

OVERVIEW OF BOOK

Although James was writing primarily to Christians, the recipients certainly weren’t acting like Christians.  They said sinful things, expressed anger, showed personal favoritism, displayed selfish ambition and worldliness.  They were jealous and quarreled.  It was hard to tell the Christians from non-Christians. What was James’ advice for these spiritually immature and spoiled children?  Ask God for wisdom, especially when facing trials. Submit to Him and acknowledge complete dependence upon Him.  And, resist the devil and his temptations.

SALVATION VERSES

There are relatively few salvation-related verses in this book, but one of these is especially important, as it is interpreted differently between Protestants and Catholics, and has contributed to a noticeable difference in their understanding of salvation. I’ll address two questions in this blog, and the remainder in my next blog.

How good does a person have to be to become a Christian?

A number of you who are reading this blog may have witnessed to someone at some point in your (and their) life, and heard a reply something like “I think I’m a pretty good person,” or “I do more good things than bad things,” or “I think I’m good enough to make it to heaven.”  For others who haven’t witnessed to anyone, and may not know whether you are a Christian, you might be thinking that these replies describe how you would respond to the question of “Why should God admit you into heaven when you die?”

There are several verses in the Bible that actually tell us how good a person has to be to make it to heaven.  “Oh really?”  Yes.  Probably the most popular one is Romans 3:10-12, which says the following: 10 As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one;  11 there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.  12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”  However, we’re not reviewing the book of Romans now, so the question is, what does the book of James say to answer our question.  The answer is found below:

James 2:9-10   9 But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.  10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. 

Here we see that if a person breaks any one of God’s laws, he is considered a law breaker, and guilty of breaking all of them.  In short, a person is either perfect, or imperfect.  Actually, other than Jesus, a person is either imperfect…or…imperfect.  And as we will learn from other books of the Bible, an imperfect or lawbreaking person cannot go to heaven based upon his own efforts.

So, how good does a person have to be to become a Christian?  Becoming a Christian is not a matter of how good a person is, for no one is good in God’s eyes (in terms of their ability to comply with all of His laws and their sinfulness).  Becoming a Christian is a matter of faith in the Lord, and having one’s sins forgiven.  It is a matter of becoming “right” with the Lord, or righteous, and that can only take place when Jesus gets involved (when you put your faith in the One who was and is perfect).

However, once a person becomes a Christian, and receives the Holy Spirit within them (which James mentions in 4:5), that person should begin to act more and more like Christ over  time. If a person shows no evidence of any change in their life, but claims to have been saved, then, well, that’s a subject I’ll address in my next blog entry on James.

How good does a Christian have to act to be viewed as a Christian?

According to the book of James, Christians can act pretty badly and still be considered a Christian. On the other hand, James clearly pointed out that when you say you’re a Christian but don’t act like one, you really need to question your religion.

Given the relatively sinful behaviors of the Christians James wrote to, I don’t think we would want to use them as model or ideal Christians.   However, what we can learn from this book is that new or spiritually weak Christians may not have changed enough to do away with much of their formerly sinful activities.  Time will be needed for spiritually immature Christians to mature in their faith, and act accordingly.

As Christians, we need to be careful, then, not to judge others too quickly, for some may be a Christian, but still have a ways to go before they act Christ-like.  On the other hand, new Christians should take a hard look at how they behave, and seek God’s wisdom and grace in how to live in a godly way that pleases Him.  Otherwise, non-believers have fodder to claim that Christians are hypocrites, or that they claim to be a Christian, but don’t act like one.

In my next blog entry, I’ll address the big question that has divided Catholics and Protestants on salvation, and the question deals with whether good deeds are needed – in addition to faith – in order for a person to be saved.